Activision CEO: Star Wars: The Old Republic may not make EA any money

The head of World of Warcraft developer Activision Blizzard doesn't believe …

Star Wars: The Old Republic will soon become the latest in a long line of online games attempting to tackle the behemoth that is World of Warcraft, but Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick doesn't seem too worried. In fact, he believes that The Old Republic may not even be profitable for EA.

During the recent Reuters Media Summit, Kotick reportedly questioned whether or not the much-hyped Star Wars MMO would be able to steal subscribers from WoW. He also explained that due to the licensing fees for the Star Wars name, which is owned by LucasArts, he's unclear how profitable the game will be.

"Lucas is going to be the principal beneficiary of the success of Star Wars," Kotick explained at the event. "We've been in business with Lucas for a long time and the economics will always accrue to the benefit of Lucas, so I don't really understand how the economics work for Electronic Arts. If you look at the history of the people investing in an MMO and achieving success, it's a small number."

Earlier this year, EA CEO John Riccitiello revealed in an earnings call that the game would be "substantially profitable" with just 500,000 subscribers. By comparison, WoW currently has more than 10 million subscribers.

EA has reportedly spent upwards of $100 million on the development of The Old Republic. The game was originally announced in 2008 and is set to launch on December 20.

If anyone hasn't played and is interested in opinions about it this is what I wrote to them in the survey they sent me after the beta test. I always save anything long I write in a notepad file before submitting in case it fails. The TL;DR version would be that if you like MMOs but think they lack story, you might like TOR. If you don't like MMOs or are looking for something radically different from WoW, this isn't it.

Here is the feedback I left on the beta survey:

The voice acting is excellent and it adds a lot to the questing experience. The voice acting brings emotion and weight and interest to the quests that is missing from most MMOs. I wouldn't mind if the actors spoke a little more quickly though. At times I would read the subtitles and skip the voice dialogue because they spoke too slowly.

The companion I played with (Vette) was excellent. Funny, entertaining, likable, enjoyable to have around. I found myself altering my intended character attitude to make her happy because I liked her and wanted her approval of me to increase. That is unusual behavior for me. Very well done. I do feel the companions are a little too powerful though, I felt like I was at a noticeable disadvantage any time I sent her to do something and had to quest without her. I also dislike that she can pull aggro by walking past things. I typically avoid pet classes in MMOs because I don't want to deal with managing the pet, the companion was mostly harmless in this regard but the few occasions she aggro'd mobs were frustrating.

The out of combat self-heal I was given (channel hatred, I don't know if all classes have it or not, I only played one) was an excellent idea and avoided forcing me to sit and do nothing for periods. I also really liked your map becoming transparent when moving so that I could have it open and move at the same time.

Your questing system is horribly out of date. Your quests and the way they are returned and acquired feels like something out of 2005. The number of times that I had to walk 5+ minutes to return a single quest, get a single new quest, and then walk back the same amount of time (or more) in the opposite direction was maddening. This is Star Wars and I can summon a shuttle to quick travel me, but apparently we don't have cell phones? No one should ever spend as much time as I did walking back and forth to return a quest and get a new one, it outweighed the time it took to actually do the quests by as much as 2 to 1 at some points.

Quality versus quantity should be evaluated in both quests and player abilities. Having more interesting and fun quests/abilities is better than having more of both with less interesting options.

You need to vastly improve some areas of the tutorial system. I had to expend significant effort to understand the crafting system initially. The interface and way it works is not intuitive, nor is the manner in which you acquire "crew skills". The player should be given one skill at a time, starting with something simple like investigate or diplomacy, then guided to a crafting/gathering combination that suit eachother a few levels later.

Combat is not interesting at the level range I reached. Perhaps it will be later or is better with other classes, but I was mostly bored and had expected something more outside the traditional stand toe to toe and punch back and forth style of most MMOs. I'm not sure why I had that expectation, perhaps from promotional material I've absorbed in the past, but I was disappointed in what I experienced.

Overall I found that the game had some great ideas in it, but didn't break the mold of its biggest competitors enough to be interesting. It felt very much like a redress of the competition and not at all like its own game. Several of its systems show their age badly, clearly having been designed in a different era, many of the flaws of older games are present without the innovation and advances made since them. I was disappointed and have lost interest in the product.

How is commenting on this in any way helpful to activision/blizzard or Kotick? On the off chance he is right he can say I told you it was a bad idea to another company at a quarterly report 2 years from now?

At first I was thinking this was going to be Activision trashing EA or the game itself. But in reality, it's Activision trashing Lucas, who will likely syphon most profits the game garners. To which I say.... yeah, he's probably right. He would know, too.

That said, it'll have its die-hard fans which are a given fanbase, but I highly doubt it'll have any longevity in terms of those outside of that strict group. It'll sell well, mainly because the market is starving for a new game... but subscriptions will fall after a few months. It's just not different enough, especially with the droves of Action-MMOs like GW2, Firefall, Planetside 2, Wildstar, etc around the corner.

Also the game looks like every other mind-numbingly repetitive MMO. I have already played WOW how about something new?

That is the question that game developers are trying to answer. Exactly what would make an online RPG "new" and enticing? There's only so many ways to design graphics, the GUI, battle system, universe/world, quest system, characters, etc.

I'm reminded of the South Park episode where the creators were calling people out for claiming that South Park was just ripping off old episodes of The Simpsons. During the show, one of the characters rightly proclaimed that "'The Simpsons' has been around for years. They've done everything already." It feels like in the MMORPG world, there is very little that hasn't been done yet.

How is commenting on this in any way helpful to activision/blizzard or Kotick? On the off chance he is right he can say I told you it was a bad idea to another company at a quarterly report 2 years from now?

There is adifference between being popular, and being profitable. I think he is saying that by adding Lucas to the equation, profitability lives in a galaxy far, far away.

Also the game looks like every other mind-numbingly repetitive MMO. I have already played WOW how about something new?

I don't think they're here to cater to a vocal minority.

If they make it in any way similar to wow, people will cry that it's too much like wow.

If they don't make it anything like wow, people will cry that they have to learn something new(and that it's not enough like wow).

Look what happened with Dragon Age 2. People freak out when they take a formula that was proven popular and mess with it too much. At the same time they'd complain that it's just a rehash if they were to use the same mechanics as 1. And yet using 1's mechanics certainly would still have made it more popular than the changes they had made. I think there's an obvious choice here and it's not screwing around with new directions on a $100 million project.

Even as bad as Star Wars Galaxies was, it still had a cult following of loyal subscribers up until they decided that they wanted to radically alter the gameplay. Now it's completely shut down and the only remnants of it left are the swgemu servers that are based on the original design.

In an mmo you're going for familiarity and ease of use first, and radical tangents second. You need to appeal to the widest possible audience, not the most vocal possible.

At first I was thinking this was going to be Activision trashing EA or the game itself. But in reality, it's Activision trashing Lucas, who will likely syphon most profits the game garners. To which I say.... yeah, he's probably right. He would know, too.

didnt read him trashing anyone. lucas will make a profit because he doesn't have spend anything, just license his brand. he was just stating a simple fact.

this is what I wrote to them in the survey they sent me after the beta test. I always save anything long I write in a notepad file before submitting in case it fails. The TL;DR version would be that if you like MMOs but think they lack story, you might like TOR. If you don't like MMOs or are looking for something radically different from WoW, this isn't it.

World of Warcraft was amazing. It was my first and best MMO experience up until about 2 months ago (even though I quit my daily play routine over 2 years ago). I tried Rift, I tried Warhammer Online, and some F2Play ones. They all sucked. WoW was and is still the behemoth in the room. However, the introduction of Panda's/Monks and Pokemon pet battles tells me that WoW has outlived its usefulness in the MMO realm. People are only still playing it because that is where their online friends currently are and there hasn't been anything to compete with it as of yet.

Introduce Star Wars: The Old Republic. I've been beta-testing this game for a month now and here are the pros and cons to WoW and SWTOR:

WoW Pros: Smooth, little downtime or bugs, experienced dev team, the base for all other MMO's. Mod friendly UI. Boring at this point if you do not raid...so boring.

WoW Cons: PVP breaking PVE, boring storyline, same old game. POKEMON pets that battle - a new low. Panda/Monk classes? Make a new MMO now - stop adjusting an old game.

SWTOR Pros: Amazing and immersive storyline per character - every character has their own! Companion to help you with quests and filling in slots for dungeons when you can't find that "5th" player (it's actually 4 in SWTOR, but...). Something new! If you play WoW, you'll be able to play SWTOR. Many of your friends will be here. Half of my WoW guild will be playing SWTOR and that will spell the end for WoW as friends can pull friends to other games. You get to play your favorite Star Wars type character! Jedi Knight, Sith Warrior, casters, Troopers/Bounty Hunters (awesome), Smugglers/Agents.

SWTOR Cons: Still has some bugs - it's still in beta! The Galactic Trade Network needs some lovin, but in the past 1.5 months they've made great improvements. If anyone can take down WoW, it will be EA/BioWare. What a team.

Lastly, WoW really is on its last leg. It was the greatest thing EVER in its day, but now it is teetering. Pokemon pets...seriously? Be true to the game, rather than just milking it and the players for everything you can, Blizzard. It's time to move to the next step (virtual reality MMO would be cool). Until then, SWTOR is going to cut one of WoW's legs off in the first few weeks and as WoW bleeds out, SWTOR's Sith Lords are going to vamp up all that blood.

And what exactly was a the business driven reason behind the WoW Annual Pass? They still have over 10 million subscribers so they aren't hurting for users. Likely they are anticipating massing subscriber churn from something...

How is commenting on this in any way helpful to activision/blizzard or Kotick? On the off chance he is right he can say I told you it was a bad idea to another company at a quarterly report 2 years from now?

Kotick is a dick who can't ever keep his mouth shut. Where's the benefit in saying he's not interested in creating new games and instead setting up franchises he can milk annually? Yet he still said it.

Combat is not interesting at the level range I reached. Perhaps it will be later or is better with other classes, but I was mostly bored and had expected something more outside the traditional stand toe to toe and punch back and forth style of most MMOs. I'm not sure why I had that expectation, perhaps from promotional material I've absorbed in the past, but I was disappointed in what I experienced.

This. I've never gotten into any MMO because of this. This "gameplay" has NEVER seemed entertaining to me.Edit: I did drop $10 on DCU Online when it went FTP, I wanted to support them and try it out and get trophies... but so far it still feels too boring to me.

'Only' 500,000 subs to be significantly profitable? That's like saying you need 4,000,000 box sales to be significantly profitable. Well, duh, it's hard not to be with numbers like that. Which is also why very few games reach those numbers.

How do they plan to do content updates? Given all of the voice acting, there's no way they'll be able to keep up with even WoW's glacial pace, much less match the pace of Rift.

It'll be a successful single-player online KoTOR game. But it won't make EA any money, and it won't succeed as an MMO.

Also the game looks like every other mind-numbingly repetitive MMO. I have already played WOW how about something new?

I don't think they're here to cater to a vocal minority.

If they make it in any way similar to wow, people will cry that it's too much like wow.

If they don't make it anything like wow, people will cry that they have to learn something new(and that it's not enough like wow).

Look what happened with Dragon Age 2. People freak out when they take a formula that was proven popular and mess with it too much. At the same time they'd complain that it's just a rehash if they were to use the same mechanics as 1. And yet using 1's mechanics certainly would still have made it more popular than the changes they had made. I think there's an obvious choice here and it's not screwing around with new directions on a $100 million project.

Even as bad as Star Wars Galaxies was, it still had a cult following of loyal subscribers up until they decided that they wanted to radically alter the gameplay. Now it's completely shut down and the only remnants of it left are the swgemu servers that are based on the original design.

In an mmo you're going for familiarity and ease of use first, and radical tangents second. You need to appeal to the widest possible audience, not the most vocal possible.

Dragon Age 2 didn't fail because they changed the formula. Dragon Age 2 failed because they used 4 dungeons over and over again for the entire game. Dragon Age 2 failed because the characters were mundane at best. Itemization hardly existed, and the game was insanely linear. Oh, and the plot was almost non-existent until half way through the game. It's not that it was bad, it just didn't exist. And it was about 1/10 the length.

Attributing the failure of Dragon Age 2 to the mechanics is an extreme oversimplification of the game's issues. And even if those changes remained, if all the other rough corners weren't there, it still would have been enjoyed.

That said, Warhammer, RIFT, Aion, and many other games have made near-WoW Clones that all did extremely well at first with their incredibly vocal fanbase, but quickly faded because even though (for example) rifts were an excellent addition to the existing formula, it wasn't enough to completely sell all the other legacy issues that WoW has since improved upon (especially with 1-60 Cataclysm.)

Given precidence of these games, it's easy to draw the conclusion that Star Wars will follow the same road with the added Star Wars bump. Sales will be spectacular. There is NO doubt about that. But the minor changes that were made to the formula won't sell the game as much after the first few months.

I think there's an obvious choice here and it's not screwing around with new directions on a $100 million project.

Nothing more need be said, honestly. That's what it comes down to. Bioware was never going to do anything other than polish the established successful formula to a shine with that kind of money riding on it. That's a sound decision on their part for a license like this.

It's not surprising the game does nothing innovative. It's clearly meant to ride entirely on the combination of two brands: BioWare and Star Wars and not gameplay. Honestly, I'm surprised they didn't just straight-up copy every single aspect of World of Warcraft. I guess BioWare designers need to "earn" their paycheck somehow?

The success of this game rests on how many BioWare single-player customers they can convert, I think. There's no way it competes with WoW on subscribers. I'd guess the game tops out at like a million subscribers, maybe two if they knock it out of the park.

And since we know very well BioWare's core customer, I think I need to find out about costume and romance options before I can determine if their customers convert.

WoW has lost a fair amount of subscriptions in the last few months as it is. With the addition of Kung-Fu Pandas and the insane talent tree revamp coming, it seems like Blizzard is trying to kill WoW on purpose.

The beta for Swtor was fun. Its not perfect nor revolutionary but its a solid foundation. The main storylines are the star. They hold your interest and make you want to roll a different toon to see it all. If Bioware can give players what they demand within the first six months I don't see why it couldn't challenge WoW, at least in the US market.

Based on several BioWare developer interviews and game-play videos, I wrote TOR off as just another WoW clone that brings nothing new to the table. Then I saw the cinematics (which were awesome); I decided to sign up for the beta. I got an e-mail for the beta weekend, and decided to try it (played a Sith Inquisitor).

Although the combat mechanics are nothing new, what really got me playing was the well done questing system and story line. The world was massive, immersive, and some parts of the solo questing was actually quite challenging (coming from a WoW ex-Gladiator healer). It reminded me of playing KOTOR (not the second one because that sucked), but in an online setting. I pre-ordered it on the notion that even if end-game sucks (no new content, etc), the money is well spent on just the story leveling up.

So basically, EA got me to pre-order and buy the game at full price along with maybe 2 months subscription. I'm sure at launch there will literally be millions of people. I think most people will enjoy the storyline and the leveling process. The real question, if they want to take on WoW is: how will they keep the subscribers? Keeping up the awesome storyline (for multiple classes and light/dark side) is NOT going to be easy. However, if they do so, they will surely have a winner on their hands.

I can imagine Lucas hearing these comments and shrugging with a smile. That guy handles criticism with a surprising amount of grace. Being insanely rich probably helps the medicine go down.

As someone who's sampled both WOW and SWTOR, I can say that for a person who likes long games with immersive worlds and stories, Star Wars wins hands down. But I still won't be subscribing because I only have so much free time, and there are so many great games with better visuals, better stories, and no obnoxious strangers.

Bioware tried to address all the things that they perceived as keeping gamers from playing MMOs, and oddly what they seem to have created is an adequate, very long Bioware RPG that just happens to have other real people in it. I'm not sure I'm won over by the approach when I can just wait for Mass Effect 3 and not pay a monthly fee.

We have no reason to assume Bobby Kotick is privy to any information about the EA/Lucas deal, and every reason to assume that he wishes SW:TOR will fail. Given those, this article could have been titled "Bobby Kotick hates those sour grapes".

Seriously EA has said they will be wildly profitable at 500,000 subs, and having played in early beta and last weekends beta, I would think that to be on the low end of what to expect from this MMO. So as an outsider, with a vested interest in the game failing, and speaking in direct opposition to information Bioware has released, his opinion doesn't carry much weight with me. Oh yeah and hes a tool, check any of his interviews and you'll see what I mean.

Kotick's comments have a kernel of truth and are not w/o precedent. Wizard of the Coast dropped the Star Wars license along with Sony Online with Star Wars Galaxies. Both times, the unofficial reason was the maintenance of the Star Wars license both via a slice of the profits and IP management.

The Star Wars license will attract players, but will it keep those players and will license terms w/ Lucas Films allow a successful SW:tOR to keep up with a World of Warcraft or similar player? Fact is fact, in that EA is paying out a slice of its profits to Lucas Films. That is profit that could have been used to further develop the game and add additional content. That is a competitive disadvantage.

Dragon Age 2 didn't fail because they changed the formula. Dragon Age 2 failed because they used 4 dungeons over and over again for the entire game. Dragon Age 2 failed because the characters were mundane at best. Itemization hardly existed, and the game was insanely linear. Oh, and the plot was almost non-existent until half way through the game. It's not that it was bad, it just didn't exist. And it was about 1/10 the length.

Attributing the failure of Dragon Age 2 to the mechanics is an extreme oversimplification of the game's issues. And even if those changes remained, if all the other rough corners weren't there, it still would have been enjoyed.

That said, Warhammer, RIFT, Aion, and many other games have made near-WoW Clones that all did extremely well at first with their incredibly vocal fanbase, but quickly faded because even though (for example) rifts were an excellent addition to the existing formula, it wasn't enough to completely sell all the other legacy issues that WoW has since improved upon (especially with 1-60 Cataclysm.)

Given precidence of these games, it's easy to draw the conclusion that Star Wars will follow the same road with the added Star Wars bump. Sales will be spectacular. There is NO doubt about that. But the minor changes that were made to the formula won't sell the game as much after the first few months.

Point taken for DA, but you still didn't really make any argument to justify why you think Bioware should have gone out of their way to make a massive investment like this tangent off into a direction that's not a proven success. Parroting "It's somewhat like wow, so it will fail" is not going to convince anyone that charting unknown territory is an appropriate thing to do to a $100+ million investment for Bioware or EA.

'Only' 500,000 subs to be significantly profitable? That's like saying you need 4,000,000 box sales to be significantly profitable. Well, duh, it's hard not to be with numbers like that. Which is also why very few games reach those numbers.

How do they plan to do content updates? Given all of the voice acting, there's no way they'll be able to keep up with even WoW's glacial pace, much less match the pace of Rift.

It'll be a successful single-player online KoTOR game. But it won't make EA any money, and it won't succeed as an MMO.

You make some big assumptions about their development process. At Pax Prime the dev team spoke a little bit about this. They said that now that they are nearing launch they are adding more people to the writing team to keep up with the demand for content. They also described the how they had recording studios in a number of locations and used a large number of voice actors. It seems they have a fairly large stable of voice talent they can call on as needed. I'm not worried about development speed because of this.

My biggest hope is that the content is quality. WoW has become predictable with updates- a new raid and a hub for daily quests for you to repeat ad nauseum. I'm hoping for some good story driven content from SWTOR.

I won't be subscribing to either WOW or SWTOR, because I just don't spend that much time gaming. However as someone who has played both and leveled all classes in the SWTOR beta, SWTOR wins hands down. The quests are more engaging, the voice acting really helps immerse you in the universe and leveling while still a bit repetitive is much more entertaining in SWTOR. Playing the dark side is especially amusing as you rewarded for going out of your way to be extra evil.

I don't see WOW getting many new subscribers, but I do predict that SWTOR will easily clear one million subscribers in its first month and maybe 5 million within the first quarter. WOW may have Chuck Norris, but SWTOR has the dark side and the power of the dark side cannot be fathomed.

Okay, so they'll probably sell 500,000 copies. But is that "substantially" profitable? Generously assuming they get 500,000 traditional North American customers, that's $30 million at retail at $60 per copy, which means they haven't yet recouped 1/3rd of their supposed $100 million investment. Assuming then a very generous 75% retention rate over the first three months and $15 per month, that's an additional $17 million over those three months. Assuming another generous 75% of remaining subscribers stay on another three months, that's another $13 million. That's $60 million over 6 months at probably their best case scenario. Am I missing anything?

In my mind, they better hope for "substantially" more than 500,000 customers.

We have no reason to assume Bobby Kotick is privy to any information about the EA/Lucas deal, and every reason to assume that he wishes SW:TOR will fail. Given those, this article could have been titled "Bobby Kotick hates those sour grapes".

Hmmm, no reason to assume that there isn't massive amounts of cross polinationin an industry that constantly has its tech workers change sides? Really? You don't think Activision has a single person in EA or the Lucas empire to gather information over an informal but pricy lunch? You need to get out more (for lunch ...)

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Seriously EA has said they will be wildly profitable at 500,000 subs, and having played in early beta and last weekends beta, I would think that to be on the low end of what to expect from this MMO. So as an outsider, with a vested interest in the game failing, and speaking in direct opposition to information Bioware has released, his opinion doesn't carry much weight with me. Oh yeah and hes a tool, check any of his interviews and you'll see what I mean.

They won't be "wildly profitable" at that number if they are also claiming it cost them 100 million to take it this far, unless they are charging at least $200 per copy and can keep the subscribership after the first month or two.

So farm "wildly profitable" only applies to WoW. And, I hate WoW but its the unfortunate truth.